This invention relates generally to weather broadcasting and display systems, and more particularly to a method for detecting and displaying areas of dangerous wind shear that may result in tornadic activity.
For many years people have relied on weather broadcasts to help plan their lives. According to Robert Henson in his book, Television Weathercasting: A History, weather xe2x80x9cconsistently ranks as the top draw in both local and national news (when featured in the latter).xe2x80x9d According to a poll conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1980, weather was xe2x80x9cthe major reason that people watch the news programs.xe2x80x9d
The field of meteorology has seen significant technological advances in the past few years. New and innovative devices such as Doppler radar, thunderstorm detectors, and wind and temperature profiles have all helped meteorologists better understand and predict weather. However, despite the advances in ways to measure meteorological activity, the television broadcast of this information has seen few advances. The typical current weathercast display represents the weather symbolically rather than realistically and usually only shows the general air temperature and the location of precipitation. In some instances, a superimposed satellite display of fluffy cloud patterns is shown moving along over the flat map from an exaggerated height observation point. The xe2x80x9cblue screenxe2x80x9d display behind the announcer still usually shows the familiar two-dimensional patchwork rainfall amounts in red, yellow, green and blue. The satellite imagery displayed on the evening broadcast may be anywhere from a half-hour to four hours old.
Also significant is the information that is absent from the conventional weathercast display, such as: (1) the type of precipitation, (2) the strength and location of wind shear, (3) the presence of tornadic signatures showing rapid circular motion, (4) the location of updraft vault, (5) the location of wall clouds, (6) the location of heavy lightning activity, and (7) the wind direction on the ground.
The National Weather Service has a network of advanced S-Band radar stations in place at 138 sites in the United States, and is capable of delivering 77 different products to government meteorologists. These products include; winds aloft, lightning activity and wind shear conditions, such as microburst activity. However, of these 77 products, only 11 are commercially available through contract with several private weather service companies which act as intermediaries between the National Weather Service and the public. These companies charge for the use of these eleven products and, in order to receive the latest radar (NEXRAD) information from a particular site, a private individual or company pays a monthly fee to receive the radar signal.
There are several patents, which disclose various system utilizing wind shear information to detect microburst and wake turbulence..
Albo et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,648,782 discloses a fuzzy logic processing system to detect atmospheric microburst events. The purpose of the Albo patent is to identify microburst activity, which is usually undetectable to the human eye, as opposed to tornadic or storm gust fronts which are perceptible without aid of instrumentation.
Gordon, U.S. Pat. No. 5,262,773 discloses a method and apparatus for detecting specialized meteorological conditions such as microbursts and wake turbulence generated by aircraft. The system is used by flight controllers to observe the severity of wind conditions in close proximity to aircraft runway, to assist with takeoffs and landings.
The present invention is distinguished over the prior art in general, and these patents in particular, by providing a weather-casting system for detecting wind shear and determining the possibility of dangerous twisting winds, so that potentially hazardous weather conditions can be identified and broadcast to television viewers in real time. The present invention will identify microburst activity, but is more particularly directed toward the formation of circular wind activity that may indicate a tornado, and the present invention relates to broadcasting this information to television viewers.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a computerized method of detecting and displaying dangerous wind shear wherein wind velocities are detected by a weather radar, and the velocities are processed to determine the location of wind shear exceeding a predetermined threshold value. The wind shear locations are then graphically displayed and may be broadcast in connection with a television weather cast.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a means for prioritizing which wind shear locations are graphically displayed by examining ancillary conditions such as the location of additional wind shear, the proximity of the wind shear to a storm cell, and the atmospheric conditions above and below the wind shear location.
It is another object of this invention to provide a weather display system capable of displaying the location of dangerous wind shear. The system comprises a weather radar useful for measuring wind velocities and data processing means for analyzing the wind velocities and determining the existence and location of wind shear exceeding a predetermined value. The data processing means may also prioritize the wind shear locations based upon user-defined conditions, and graphically display only the high priority wind shear.